Thursday, December 01, 2016

I really missed being with my TEDxJax tribe this year for FearLess. After being part of the startup and working with the team for more than four years, I had to step away. We had far too much going on at work. These kids share what this country needs so much more of.

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Butterflies are monsters. I first heard that in a line from 'Giant Ant' from the The Handsome Family's first album "Odessa". I had no idea what Renni is going on about here so I googled it and found a few interesting tidbits. First one is about the Pope. He is definitely not afraid of calling a spade a spade and has labelled certain priests 'Butterfly-Priests". When responding to a question he repleied“...What is the place of Jesus Christ in my priestly life? Is it a living relationship, from the disciple to the Master, or is it a somewhat artificial relationship... that does not come from the heart?....We are anointed by the Spirit, and when a priest is far from Jesus Christ he can lose this unction.... Those who put their strength in artificial things, in vanity, in an attitude... in a cutesy language... ‘This is a butterfly-priest,’ because they are always vain.” Food for thought. I was brought up Catholic but am at odds with some of the teachings of the Church and more specifically how some of the priests handle the responsibilities of the power of their position. I read into this butterfly-priest concept as validation that we must not blindly accept what a priest or minister tells us. Blind allegiance to anything can lead to trouble.

And that leads me to the drawing above. It is for this week's Illustration Friday prompt, Stomach. Most of us tend to get butterflies in our stomach when we think about starting something important to us. Whatever that is, the more difficult the task, the more anxiety we face. I've been struggling with finding time in my life for a few projects. I have come to realize that starting is not the difficult part. Finishing is but we cannot finish something if we don't start. So we all need to make the time necessary to start and finish the things that are important to us.

Wednesday, July 06, 2016

First of all, I am NOT a Gator, but I do have to do creative work for them every now and then. I used to be a regular contributor to Illustration Friday. It has been quite some time since I last participated. I do hope this signals a change. This is an illustration created for the annual Florida-Georgia Game in Jacksonville. I also painted a Dawg. It also has teeth but the Gator has many more.